William Placher, 1948-2008

In memoriam

Dec 30, 2008

Countless times over the past two decades, when this magazine had an especially important theological book to review or topic to explore, we contacted William C. Placher, one of our editors at large. And since he could not write all the articles we suggested, we would often have to move to the next thought: Who can write almost as well as Bill?

As a theologian, Bill had an unparalleled ability to write engagingly on the most challenging subjects, to get to the heart of an issue, and to write in a way that those who are not professional theologians could understand. So if it was a book by Wolfhart Pannenberg or Jürgen Moltmann or Christopher Hitchens that needed reviewing, Bill was the obvious person to ask.